The Medusa Stone

small balcony admiring the dark city below when the satellite phone still in his luggage chirped quietly. Mercer cursed himself. He’d accidentally left the phone on receive mode, and when he snapped it open, the LOW BATTERY light glared back at him. Shit. Expecting Dick Henna, he didn’t recognize the voice on the other end, though the accent matched that of the man killed in Rome.

“Harry White has suffered terribly because of what happened to our comrade in Italy,” the voice said. “That is the second time you have tried to foil us. If you attempt a third, White will be executed and his body buried forever.”

Mercer absorbed the news like a body blow. Harry was tough, but he didn’t know how much his friend could take. His sense of failure deepened.

“I had nothing to do with that,” he protested quickly. “I never saw who shot him, but it wasn’t me.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the caller said with menace. “Your friend has paid for the murder. We will be calling you on this phone every three days at midnight for an update on your search for the mine.”

“Save yourself the trouble.” Mercer couldn’t contain his anger. “It’ll take at least a week just to get started, and I don’t need you sons-of-bitches breathing down my neck every couple of days.” He didn’t want to consider how they had gotten the number to the satellite phone. “Contact me two weeks from Monday at midnight and every Monday after that. I may have something for you by then.”

It was a small point of negotiation, Mercer knew, but he hoped it would open the way for more when the time came. “That sounds reasonable,” the kidnapper conceded. “Remember that you will be under observation at all times.”

Mercer knew there was no way they could watch him once he was in the mountains. “I understand. I don’t want anything to happen to Harry. I guarantee that I will uphold my end of the bargain.” He nearly choked on the last words.

“Two weeks, Dr. Mercer.” The phone went dead.

* * *

Three rooms down the hallway from Mercer’s, Yosef snapped off his own sat-phone and turned to the other “European businessman” who’d been with him in the bar recording Mercer’s conversation with Habte Makkonen. The other Israeli, younger than Yosef by thirty years, was cleaning a pair of Desert Eagle.50-caliber Action Express automatic pistols. The heavy weapons were perhaps the most powerful handguns in the world. A bullet anywhere in the body would take a man down permanently. A head shot would decapitate. Their other weapons and the remainder of their equipment was with the rest of the team at another hotel.

“I’m still concerned about Ibriham’s true assassin,” Yosef said with hatred. White hadn’t been harmed, but he liked to hear the pain in Mercer’s voice thinking that he had.

“We’ll find him,” the other man replied, filled with the confidence of youth.

“That’s not my concern. The gunman wasn’t acting alone, and we don’t know who was behind the murder. We also don’t know their connection to Mercer and our own plans.” Yosef sat back on his bed, his eyes focusing into middle distance. “It’s inconceivable that anyone knows about us, our security is too tight. Yet Ibriham is dead, and we have a threat we’ve yet to identify.”

“Is it possible we’ve been betrayed by our own people?” Yosef knew what the younger man was intimating, but he shook his head quickly. “No, it’s too soon for Shin Bet or Mossad to learn that much of our operation. Informants have reported on Selome Nagast’s meeting with her control in Israel. She hasn’t made any move that leads me to believe she knows who we are.”

His companion said nothing.

“She’ll be here tomorrow anyway, totally cut off from her superiors. On her own, she can’t pose a serious threat to us.”

“She’ll be with Mercer.”

“As long as we hold Harry White, he’s not a threat either.” Yosef accepted one of the Desert Eagles from his partner, slipping it under his pillow for the night.

* * *

It was well past midnight when Mercer awoke. The room was cool and dark, but his body was bathed in sweat, his blankets and sheets twisted around him as if he’d been in the throes of a nightmare. In fact, for the first time since Harry had been taken, his sleep had been dream-free. And in the depths of unconsciousness an inconsistency that had been nagging him for days came clear. The realization jerked his mind so sharply he swung himself out of bed, his chest heaving.

Since the time he had been first approached by Prescott Hyde, Mercer had felt there were diamonds in Eritrea. Hyde had spoken of, and indeed the Medusa photographs showed, a kimberlite pipe in the northern wastelands, naturally formed millions of yeas ago. Selome, too, had talked about what the pipe’s discovery would mean to her people. But not the kidnappers. The men who’d taken Harry talked about Mercer’s search for a mine, something built by human hands, not the earth’s fiery heart. On three separate occasions — the original tape of Harry left in his house, the call in Rome’s airport, and tonight’s call — they spoke as if they knew the pipe had once been discovered, opened, and actively worked. They weren’t after an unknown kimberlite pipe; they wanted a long-forgotten mine. They knew the diamonds were there, and now so did Mercer.

The game had changed once again, he thought. He was still at a severe disadvantage, but knowing he was looking for an old excavation gave him his first spark of something he’d lost the moment he saw Harry’s image on his VCR. Hope. He pushed aside his self-doubt, buried his self-recriminations. He was ready to face whatever might come.

Khartoum, Sudan

In Arabic, the name Sudan means “black,” but those in control of the country were not black Africans but people of more Arabian descent. Millions had been slaughtered through warfare, disease, and famine to maintain the subjugation of Sudan’s more ethnically African citizens in the south by their northern government. All in all, Africa’s largest nation was a hate-filled sewer that claimed a thousand more victims every day.

Sudan was thus a perfect arena for Giancarlo Gianelli to add to his wealth by preying on the misfortunes of others.

People with the kind of money Gianelli had existed in a supra-national elite class who travelled on private jets, stayed in opulent villas or exclusive hotels, and rarely bothered with the formality of customs when abroad. Only moments after landing in Khartoum, he was whisked to a house he owned in the hills overlooking the city, an enclave reserved for Sudan’s few wealthy citizens and the rulers of the military government. Though it was his least favorite city in the world, Gianelli did enough business in Khartoum to warrant the expense of a twenty-room house and a full-time staff of eighteen.

Gianelli’s majordomo in Venice had alerted his African counterpart to prepare for the visit. The staff was lined up when the limo eased through the gate and up the long drive. The headlights flashed into their faces as the car swept under the covered portico, stopping so that the head butler could simply bend at the waist to open Gianelli’s door.

“Grazie, Ali,” Gianelli said to the majordomo. “How have you been?”

“Very well, sir,” the elderly Sudanese replied gravely in Italian. “I was not told how long you would be here, sir. Should we prepare for an extended stay?”

“No, Ali, I won’t be here long at all.” Gianelli eyed his staff. Not recognizing two girls dressed neatly as maids, he asked Ali about them.

“I bought them about a month ago from a slaver selling off the last of his stock. They were expensive, but they have already been well trained,” Ali said proudly.

Sudan was one of a handful of countries that maintained a slave trade. The practice was illegal but more than tolerated by the government. Slaves, usually young girls, were routinely captured during raids in the south by either the army or regular slavers and brought to Khartoum for the pleasures of the city’s elite or sold off to Arab countries across the Red Sea. Ever open to possible business opportunities, Gianelli had considered entering the trade, but